Next year, the Portland Police Bureau implements a new policy that will redirect non-threatening 911 calls involving suicide to the Multnomah County Mental Health Call Center. The calls would be limited to those involving a suicidal person who poses no threat to anyone else. The police hope the new policy will connect suicidal callers with mental health care professionals as soon as possible.

The new policy follows other efforts by the police to reform the way they deal with incidents involving mental illness in order to handle these situations in a less confrontational way. Details are being worked out between the Police Bureau and the Bureau of Emergency Communications, but the program is expected to begin sometime in 2012.

Have you called the police about an incident involving mental illness? What was your experience?